In His Arms
by xxliveforever17xx
Summary: "Andy McNally would never tell anyone, but she had contemplated suicide before." A look into Andy's psyche, the circumstances that shaped her, and the one person who saved her from herself. Slight Andy/Sam. Rated M for references to suicide and cutting.


_Hey guys. So first off, this is the darkest story I have ever written, rated M for references to suicide and death. I'm not suicidal or even depressed, but it's been a hell of a week, and I stumbled across a beautiful, if not hauntingly sad song called 'In My Arms' by Dead By April which this story is loosely based on. I've always had a feeling that there was a lot more going on in Andy's head than we were led to believe on the show...I mean, her life's pretty screwed up. So that concept is where this story comes from._

_As always, please review! I'm a bit...actually, very nervous to publish this story, since I don't know what all of your reactions will be. But I would love to hear them! Hope you all enjoy! xx

* * *

_

Andy McNally would never tell anyone, but she had contemplated suicide before.

The first time was when she was fourteen.

That was when her mother had walked out the door and out of her life. The finality of that decision and the knowledge that she would never come back drove her father to the bottle and herself to thoughts of a permanent escape. She would come home from school, lock herself in the bathroom, and sit in the bathtub, holding a knife, willing herself to take her life. A small silver scar on her wrist was a constant reminder of when she had actually found the courage to cut herself. When the sharp blade had slit her delicate skin and the crimson drops of her blood dripped on her knees that were drawn up to her chest, her father's face had flashed in front of her eyes, and she couldn't bring herself to die.

The second time was when she was eighteen.

That was when her father had missed her high school graduation. She had walked off that stage, diploma in hand, and returned home, missing the graduation party in fear of finding the worst when she walked through that door. Her fears had been confirmed when she had picked the lock, having forgotten her keys inside, and hesitantly entering the living room. The image of Tommy McNally, her strong, loving father, laying motionless on the white carpet, a stain of vomit and blood beside the corpse-like body, had frightened her like nothing had ever had before. She had thrown herself beside him, slapping his ashen skin, screaming at him to wake up.

She must have called the paramedics, for they came rushing in after an indistinguishable amount of time, pushing her out of the way as tears streamed down her cheeks, the bile rising in her throat as they placed an oxygen mask over his blue lips and pressed down on his sunken chest in what she could only realize afterward was CPR.

There had been a bottle of pills waiting for her when she got home from the hospital eight hours later. How they had made their way to the kitchen counter was still a mystery to this day, but she had taken the little orange tube in her hands, shaking like a maniac, pouring the white pills into her hand, placing them back in the bottle one by one, and then pouring them back into her palm again, sitting against the cold refrigerator door, wondering how much pain she would have to experience if she swallowed them all before the beautiful blackness overtook her.

She hadn't killed herself then either, again because her father's face had flashed in front of her eyes, the image of him burying his dead daughter bringing too many tears to her eyes for her to see the bottle clearly.

The third time was tonight.

She had killed a seventeen year old boy today. Dear God, he wasn't even legally an adult yet. But he had pulled a gun on a defenseless Sam, and she had had to pull the trigger.

The weight of the gun had been heavy in her hands then as it was now. She ran her fingers over the black weapon, her hands trembling uncontrollably as the face of that boy seared itself on her eyelids, preventing her from escaping the tormented look in his eyes.

Brown hair, green eyes. A smattering of freckles across his nose. Blue shirt. Black jeans. And a silver 9 mm in his hands. The firing of a gun. _Her_ gun. The boy, the sweet, teenage boy, dropping to the ground, dead.

But he wasn't sweet. He had been going to kill Sam. _Her_ Sam. Then why had she just thought that description of him?

_He was just a boy. He was somebody's son. He was somebody's boyfriend. He was somebody's brother._

She rocked back and forth, the screams ripping from her throat, the hot tears falling from her eyes in an unquenchable torrent.

Death. A seemingly random thought drifted into her guilt-riddled consciousness. Maybe Hamlet had had a point when he had been contemplating suicide as a way to escape the pain and horrible life that seemed to be her fate here on this bloodied, dusty earth.

She had killed someone today. She had killed a _child_ today. She _deserved_ to die.

Was she going crazy?

The front door crashed down, a shout of panic breaking through the eerie stillness in her house. Through her tears, she saw a man running through the hallway, towards the kitchen.

_Sam._

She heard his voice calling out to her, sensed the fear beneath the seeming calm. She heard him telling her to put the gun down, to not do this to herself. To not do this to him.

And slowly, she lowered the gun to the floor, the cold tile shocking her fingertips. The tears continued to fall as his arms wrapped around her, his lips kissing her hair, her throat, her face.

She clung to him like he was a life raft, like he was the only thing that mattered or existed. Because right now, he _was_ the only thing that existed.

The tears didn't cease falling for a while, and the pain never fully subsided. But the guilt eventually dissolved for the most part, and her fingers, once so cold against the tile floor, were warmed with a diamond and gold band encircling her left ring finger.

But that wouldn't be for many more months. Right now, this night, in this blackest hour, she had stopped her selfish actions because of a face. _Sam's_ face.

She was safe in his arms.


End file.
